It
may well be that “the devil is the father of lies,” but
in the words of Josh Billings, “he neglected to patent the idea,
and the business now suffers from competition.” Whereas in years
past the lesson of Pinocchio spoke volumes to children who feared being
found in falsity, deception by design has become today what Edmund Burke
describes as “a perennial spring.”

Case
in point: In the 1998 movie LIAR, LIAR Jim Carrey portrayed an attorney
whose son wishes that he would stop his habitually lying. When the boy’s
wish comes true, the “perennial spring” of lies dries up;
but havoc ensues. Fact is attorneys are not lone liars. Politicians,
students, business partners, mates, lovers, junkies, employees, employers,
polygamists, attorneys, retailers, religious opportunists, masters of
espionage, scam artists and crooks are honing to perfection the art
of deception.

With
hardly a bat of the eye, spouses lie to assuage their mates, and kids
lie to escape discipline. Lawyers lie to whitewash clients, and criminals
lie to escape justice. Speeders lie to avert tickets, and politicians
lie to win elections. Parishioners lie to escape duty, and ministers
lie to appear holy.

Falsehood:
Its Twists and Turns

In
the biblical sense, morality speaks to sexual chastity, honor, integrity
and truthfulness. Granted, some falsehoods (oral or written) are unintentional—e.g.,
a misspoken word. On the other hand, some exploitatively promote self-interest.
There’s the “little white lie” and out-and-out falsehood,
birthed from whom the Bible characterizes as the “Father of Lies,
a murderer from the beginning.”

Lies
can be active (speaking untruth) or passive (failing to disclose full
truth). They introduce logical contradictions or specious fallacies.
If for entertainment purposes alone, some folks intentionally exaggerate
or mislead. Others go beyond cleverness and trickery to defraud, unfairly
discriminate or counterfeit.

The
R-rated Imperative

So
prevalent is the practice of falsehood that onlookers everywhere snickered
when some years back the leader of the free world was caught in a tangled
web of lies with respect to his sexual immorality. Many, if not most
dismissed as inconsequential the memorable finger-in-the-face, bald-faced
lie planted on them. The subject matter alone demands deception, they
reasoned.

Moralists
disagree; however, before mounting the proverbial high horse, these
do well to recall that indicting an administration on the basis of lies,
shredded documents, moral impropriety, abused power, laundered money,
obstructed justice and the like is tricky business.

New
York Times bestselling author Edward Klein described a standard,
five-fold strategy employed within the White House: lie, deny, parse,
stonewall and then go on the offense. We’ve all seen it in action—if
truth be told, on both sides of the aisle. For every so-called liberal
at fault, there is a conservative or moderate equally ensnared in wrong
doing—and visa versa, of course.

So,
then, who’s to say?

Though
the prevailing secular worldview elevates no moral code as superior
over another, it’s downright trendy to single out and then castigate
traditional morality for applying a “spurious moral compass.”
This, of course, begs the question: How then is any moral distinction
right or wrong if all are deemed spurious?

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Consider
Michael Galster. He threatened to expose a Health Management Association
within the Arkansas penal system for harvesting from inmates blood that
was tainted with hepatitis C and the HIV virus. Allegedly with full
knowledge of prison authorities, the blood was shipped to several foreign
countries, Canada included.

It
is no accident, observes Dr. Rossiter, “that the greatest political
system in human history was founded by devout Christians on the assumption
that its citizens would live by Judeo-Christian ideals”—i.e.,
the Golden Rule—but there appears to be a new sheriff in town
whose mandate is to leave no good deed unpunished!

For
recipients of the contaminated blood and their loved ones, Galster’s
moral distinction was far from spurious. What he wouldn’t want
done to himself or his loved ones, he refused to do to others. For Galster’s
truthfulness, however, he received no kudos, no pats on the back. Instead,
he was fired and denied renewal of his orthopedic contract in the Cummins
State Prison.

Pardonable
Deception

Given
the Lord’s very essence as “the Truth,” He hates “a
lying tongue.” Even so, to protect their child from a murderous
king, the loving parents of Moses engaged in a clear act of deception
when, for three months, they hid him. In the end, an entire nation escaped
bondage because of it!

Yet
another deceiver, Rahab hid spies sent by Joshua prior to the siege
of Jericho, thus earning her a spot in the biblical Hall-of-Fame. In
both cases, morality is rightly relative to the situation and even opportunistic,
though not in unscrupulous or unprincipled ways.

The
ancient Greek tragedian, Sophocles, conceded that lying is not honorable;
but “speaking dishonorably is pardonable when the truth entails
tremendous ruin.” For example, if a knife-toting rapist-pedophile
crashed into my home demanding access to my 12-year-old daughter, I
would suffer no guilt for deliberately misdirecting him with a lie.
Nor should a soldier suffer shame for withholding military intelligence
from enemy interrogators whose intent is to inflict widespread harm.

On
a lighter level, should a wife ask if her pants make her look fat, the
husband does well to think twice before he answers! Most agree that
a creative response is in order—e.g., “Honey, you look great
to me no matter what you wear.” While arguably situational, relative
and opportunistic, the response is true enough; and no one gets hurt
by it.

A
Nation of Liars

A
leading public educator and founding father, Noah Webster recognized
Christian faith as foundation for our nation’s public life—this,
for good reason. Alongside divine enablement, “human instincts
can be controlled only where the constraints of individual conscience
are adequate, cultural morality supports their control and society’s
laws deter their criminal expression” (Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr.,
M.D., The Liberal Mind).

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As
a former first-grade teacher, later an administrator, I read this to
mean that love of truth can and should be nurtured by carefully designed
and well-communicated rules. When reasonable rules are enforced with
kindness and consistency, classmates enjoy the good fruit of an emotionally
safe and stable setting. Consequently, students naturally are drawn
to truth, the love for which is nourished by experience and nurtured
by good example.

For
some, this description conjures up the unpleasant visual of a stern,
spinster schoolmarm whose weapon in hand is a solid, stiff ruler poised
to crack knuckles. This, of course, is far from the ideal, as is the
permissive model that indulges carelessness. After all, when carelessness
is given full reign, a culture rots from within. Samuel Johnson reminds
us that “it is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally
lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.”

Postmodern
Morality

Through
the revolving door of evolving values, childlike immoderation typically
trumps mature moral moderation. Accordingly, today’s Olympic-class
consumers all too often indulge in what they cannot afford—even
if they have to beg, whine, steal, borrow or lie to get what they want.
The perpetual child is “worth it” after all; and convenience,
comfort and emotion drive the childlike masses.

Lying
today is big business. On the heels of indulgence come web sites that
provide tips for how to beat a polygraph or fabricate an alibi. A new
survey by CareerBuilder.com reveals that over half of hiring managers
admit to having caught a lie on a candidate’s application for
employment (but just five percent of workers admit to fibbing on their
résumés).

This
Dot-Com’s vice president of human resources, Rosemary Haefner
observes rightly that “catching a lie on a résumé
raises a red flag about a candidate’s overall ethics.” The
same holds true for students who plagiarize assignments. Crediting self
for another’s efforts likewise introduces the leaven of deception.
Not only is the offending student robbed of an important educational
experience, but he also grasps credit from another whose time, effort
and genius warrant due recognition.

Abraham
Lincoln once noted, “What is morally wrong can never be politically
right.” However, in the contemporary view of things, Lincoln’s
maxim is perceived as archaic, old-fashioned and out of touch. Take,
for example, the partisan tradition of mud-slinging. The political volley
of name-calling not only hits below the belt; this contemporary practice
serves also to uncover a culture gone awry.

To
characterize all liberals as godless, bleeding-heart, pinko-communists
and conservatives as intolerant, extremist right-wing ignoramuses hardly
flatters the American ideal of one nation, indivisible under God, and
offering liberty and justice to all.

A
Little Leaven Leavens the Lump

By
definition, leaven is an agent that causes a cook’s batter to
rise when baked. By means of fermentation, leaven (yeast) gradually
modifies and expands the dough. Metaphorically, leaven symbolizes sin
or false doctrine. When mixed with the doctrine of God, a little leaven
corrupts largely. Jesus shared the Parable of the Leaven to show how
something small becomes something big.

The
biblical principle finds expression in Lithuanian poet Czeslaw Milosz’s
depiction of a tree of falsehood, grown from a small grain of truth.
To “let one’s lie be even more logical than the truth itself”
may well attract the weary traveler to find repose in it. Nonetheless,
Lenin warned that “a lie told often enough becomes the truth”
when bereft of a “grand meta-narrative” (big picture).

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Bypassing
accountability to God, self-serving “truth” morphs into
nothing more than a social or personal construction; and reality dissolves
into paltry bits and pieces. Societal permissiveness and partisan politics
surely contribute, but America’s ills stem more from absence of
the love of truth, lack of which is certain to yield what the Bible
fingers as “unfruitful works of darkness.”

In
the end, everyone pays for lies; and no one is the better for them.

Daughter of an
Army Colonel, Debra graduated with distinction from the University of
Iowa. She then completed a Master of Education degree from the University
of Washington. These were followed by Bachelor of Theology and Master
of Ministries degrees-both from Pacific School of Theology.

While a teacher
in Kuwait, Debra undertook a three-month journey from the Persian Gulf
to London by means of VW "bug"! One summer, she tutored the daughter of
Kuwait's Head of Parliament while serving as superintendent of Kuwait's
first Vacation Bible School.

Having authored
the ABCs of Globalism and ABCs
of Cultural -Isms, Debra speaks to Christian and secular groups alike.
Her radio spots air globally. Presently, Debra co-hosts WOMANTalk
radio with Sharon Hughes and Friends, and she contributes monthly commentaries
to Changing Worldviews and NewsWithViews.com. Debra calls the Pacific
Northwest home.

The biblical principle
finds expression in Lithuanian poet Czeslaw Milosz’s depiction of
a tree of falsehood, grown from a small grain of truth. To “let
one’s lie be even more logical than the truth itself” may
well attract the weary traveler to find repose in it.